CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Last week, 19 Homeland Security Investigations Special Agents in Charge sent a letter to DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen calling for ICE to be reorganized into two separate agencies in the wake of backlash over the enforcement of the Trump administration's zero tolerance policy.

The agents argue that enforcement of family separations over a misdemeanor offense had distracted from the mission of the department "to secure the United States against nefarious actions perpetrated by terrorists and transitional criminal organizations."

Investigators "have been perceived as targeting undocumented aliens, instead of the transitional criminal organizations that facilitate cross border crimes impacting our communities and national security," the agents wrote in the letter.

Former ICE deputy director Alonzo Pena told the Texas Observer that the agents fear their agency has become "a political pawn " for the Trump administration.

Pena said Homeland Security Investigations agents are "supposed to be out there making these major cases, these big cartels that are smuggling guns, money. And because of this whole immigration rhetoric -- that immigrants are bad, that they are criminals and rapists and all that --the focus is totally off mission."

The agents want to be in their own agency separated from the Trump Gestapo unit that separates families, detains them without due process, violates asylum laws and doesn't keep accurate records of who they separated and where they are at.

Low moral at ICE

The letter states that "there are numerous reasons the establishment of two separate agencies will improve both agencies. Both agencies have suffered low approval rating in recent DHS Federal Viewpoint surveys. The establishment of two separate agencies will allow employees to develop a strong agency pride."

Nielsen received the letter amidst calls for ICE to be abolished, by some Democrats. Those calls are likely to increase with the revelation that DHS/ICE did not always provide the Department of Health and Human Services with proper records for children separated from their parents

Under 3,000 not 2,047 kids remain separated.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar is now saying under 3,000 kids are in HHS custody. Two weeks ago he was saying the number was 2,047.

The difference in the numbers and Azar's vague accounting raises doubts about the claim from Azar and Nielsen that DHS and HHS has a process/system in place that can account for all the separated parents and kids.

If they have a process, it now appears they haven't followed it, or are making it up as they go along.

One of the conclusions to be drawn by Azar's explanation for only being able to estimate how many kids are in HHS custody and were separated, is that DHS/ICE did not always note in paperwork transferring kids to HHS custody, whether they were separated from there parents and if it was after the initiation of the zero tolerance policy.

Azar was more specific in saying there were 100 kids under age 5 that still must be reunited with their parents.

A federal court order calls for all children under 5 to be reunited by July 14 and all other separated kids to be reunited by June 26. That's unlikely to happen if DHS and HHS can't even say exactly how many kids have been separated and are in HHS custody.

Abolish ICE abuse.

As originally conceived, ICE served a vital need and had a reputable mission. The problem is not the concept of ICE, it's that ICE has been abused and misused by the President Trump, zero tolerance policy mastermind Stephen Miller, Chief of Staff John Kelly, and DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen.

Keep ICE as one agency, or reorganize it into two, as the agents suggested, but abolish the abuse of ICE and it's original mission.